Raspberry Mead – Micro Batch Recipe

Every year I’m excited about fermenting up something tasty with raspberries. Raspberry wine, raspberry mead or even a light summery raspberry beer. Just one problem…raspberries are wicked expensive. Do you know how many raspberries it takes to make even a gallon of raspberry wine?

For beer or mead, it takes about a quart in a one gallon batch, or over a gallon of fresh fruit in a 5 gallon batch to really get the flavor to come through. Around these parts, even pick your own berries are pricey, and those from my own raspberry patch are gobbled before they hit the bowl.

So why not a micro batch?

There are a lot of great reasons to make a micro batch mead. For raspberry mead, a micro batch is a great way to keep your costs down without sacrificing flavor. With just barely a handful of raspberries, you can make a quart batch of raspberry mead that is brimming with raspberry goodness.

It’s also a good way to see if a sweet and VERY fruity mead is your cup of tea.

All you need to start is a bit of honey, raspberries, a quart mason jar and a mason jar fermentation kit. There are a number of brands to choose from. Try this one. Or this one.

I use a kit by Fermentools that looks a lot like a home brew setup, and if you choose to do bigger batches later you’ll need the rubber stopper and water lock that are included in the kit.

One quart batch of raspberry mead with a fermentools fermentation kit (water lock).

Start by adding a bit of honey to the bottom of a quart mason jar. The basic instructions for a one quart batch of mead have you add between 2/3 of a cup of honey and 1 cup of honey to get the right ratio of honey to water in your jar. With the added fruit sweetness, stick to 2/3 of a cup. I’ve tried a full cup for this recipe, and it was cloyingly sweet and just a hair shy of cough syrup. Adding 2/3 of a cup is more than enough for a sweet dessert mead, and if you’re looking for something drier, go with 1/2 cup.

For raspberries, I had a half pint (one cup) easily at hand. They were super fresh, about 10 minutes old from my patch. One cup is all I could keep from eating out of hand before I made it back to the kitchen, but it was plenty for this micro batch.

With honey and raspberries in the jar, getting your mead going is pretty effortless. Bring about 3 cups of water to a boil on the stove, then cool slightly for about 30 seconds before pouring it directly into the jar over the raspberries and honey.

Stir to dissolve the honey and incorporate the raspberries.

Once it’s cooled to room temperature, or at least cooled to 90 to 100 degrees so it wont kill the yeast, add in a brewing yeast. For meads, I use packages of champagne yeast. One pack is enough to pitch a 5 gallon batch, so using the whole packet is overkill for a micro batch.

I usually use about 1/4 of a yeast packet because it’s hard to actually extract less than that from a tiny packet. Dissolve it in room temperature chlorine free water and pour it into your mason jar.

Once it’s all said and done you should have 2/3 cup honey, 1 cup raspberries, a bit under 3 cups of water and about 1/4 of a packet of champagne yeast in your mason jar. Be sure to leave about an inch of headspace to allow for expansion and bubbling during fermentation.

Add on your mason jar fermentation kit and allow it to ferment at room temperature, out of direct sunlight for about 6 weeks.

The initial fermentation phase can be a bit intense, so after the first week if fruit has made it into your water lock, pop it off and clean it out. Be sure to get it back on tight for the rest of your fermentation time.

When fermentation is complete, carefully pour off the mead into another jar, leaving the sediment behind.

I bottle mine, and allow it to age in grolsch bottles for at least 2 weeks, preferably a bit longer.

Thank you for this recipe! I’ve long wanted to try my hand at making mead but didn’t want to tackle 5 gallons, or even one. So, this small batch seems a perfect way to learn and test the process.

I started a batch November 27th. I used the Easy Fermenter kit system. Initially, the yeast went crazy, but then I’d see no action. Reading your warning about a vent clogging, I gently swirled the jar at least daily. That cleared the seeds from the vent and it would go back to brewing away. The past two days, I don’t see any bubbling. Does this all sound like what should be expected?

The first week or so, especially the first 3-4 days, is the “violent fermentation stage” where it really goes nuts. If you have a regular water lock, it sounds like popcorn popping as the bubbles jiggle it around on their way out. If you’re swirling it, you’re adding a bit of air into the ferment, which can actually promote more violent fermentation. I haven’t used the easy fermenter kit system myself, but if that worked to clear the blockage and get it going again, great.

It’s also ok, and my preferred method, to just take the lid off and wash it out. During the initial phase of fermentation, especially with pitched yeast (rather than wild yeast), the yeast are the dominant organism and they’re outcompeting anything else, so it’s ok to have the lid off just to wash it.

Later, like where you are, a lot of the sugars have turned to alcohol, and most of the yeast have died off. Now is the stage where it’s most susceptible to contamination (and turning to vinegar). At this point, it’s actually alcoholic and drinkable, though it’ll taste pretty rough. The next few weeks, the yeast will work slowly, and the flavors will refine. You wont see much action, but this slower phase is where the good flavors come from.

Sounds like everything is going perfectly. Let me know how it turns out!

Hello Ashley, Nice job. I can’t wait for the snow to be gone. I wont to get my little elderberry twigs out and in the ground. This winter has been tough here in N.H. Your mead looks delicious . Can frozen berries be used? Thank you.

I don’t sterilize anything, but I have a minority opinion. Just about everyone else does, but I’ve never found it necessary. You’re pouring boiling water into the jar in this recipe, and there’s plenty of living bacteria/yeast on the raspberries. A lot more than are on the jar. But, sterilization never hurts anything and all in all it helps to ensure a more consistent batch. The only real place I’ve found contamination to be a serious problem is in a racking cane/tube.

Hi, I made this recipe but scaled up for a gallon container. This is my first time making mead so I have a question. Although most of my raspberries/sediment has sunk to the bottom, some of the raspberries, approx 1/4 or 1/5 is still at the top and according to the recipe I should bottle in 1 week. I am worried about how to bottle it bc I don’t have siphoning equipment and was counting on all the raspberries being at the bottom so I could pour it into the bottles. Is there a way to bottle it as it is now without siphoning equipment, or should I let it ferment longer until the last sediment drops? Or just buy siphoning stuff?

No worries. A fine mesh strainer will work to strain out the floating fruit. Lacking that, a scrap of old t-shirt works fine too, or cheesecloth, or a cloth napkin, coffee filter, etc. There are lots of options. Slowly pour it off through a filter to get the top floating stuff, but at the same time try to leave the very fine sediment at the bottom undisturbed.

Hey Ashley,
I love your posts! I’ve had a lot of fun reading them and I’m very excited to try some of this out! Will this recipe work for blackberries and strawberries? Also, I read one of your other articles about using herbs! I’m really interested in making medicinal meads. Do you have any recommendations for herbs to be paired well with strawberries or blackberries?

Yes, this will work great with strawberries or blackberries. As to the herbal part, it’s mostly what’s in season at the same time and flavors that sound like they might work (plus whatever you’re trying to accomplish medicinally) For strawberries, try strawberry elderflower, it’s lovely. For blackberries, maybe blackberry lemon balm?

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